his new form of
the old argument, "_Ex contingentia mundi_." But I may point out in
passing, that the reference of human love to a divine creative source is
accomplished by means of the idea of cause, one of the categories of the
thought which Browning has aspersed. And it is a little difficult to
show why, if we are constrained to doubt our thought, when by the aid of
causality it establishes a connection between finite and finite, we
should regard it as worthy of trust when it connects the finite and the
infinite. In fact, it is all too evident that the poet assumes or denies
the possibility of knowledge, according as it helps or hinders his
ethical doctrine.

But, if we grant the ascent from the finite to the infinite and regard
man's love as a divine gift--which it may well be although the poet's
argument is invalid--then a new light is thrown upon the being who gave
man this power to love. The "necessity," "the mere power," which alone
could be discerned by observation of the irresistible movement of the
world's events, acquires a new character. Prior to this discovery of
love in man as the work of God--

"Head praises, but heart refrains
From loving's acknowledgment.
Whole losses outweigh half-gains:
Earth's good is with evil blent:
Good struggles but evil reigns."[A]

[Footnote A: _Reverie_--_Asolando_.]

But love in man is a suggestion of a love without; a proof, in fact,
that God is love, for man's love is God's love in man. The source of the
pity that man shows, and of the apparent evils in the world which excite
it, is the same. The power which called man into being, itself rises up
in man against the wrongs in the world. The voice of the moral
consciousness, approving the good, condemning evil, and striving to
annul it, is the voice of God, and has, therefore, supreme authority. We
do wrong, therefore, in thinking that it is the weakness of man which is
matched against the might of evil in the world, and that we are fighting
a losing battle. It is an incomplete, abstract, untrue view of the facts
of life which puts God as irresistible Power in the outer world, and
forgets that the same irresistible Power works, under the higher form of
love, in the human heart.

"Is not God now i' the world His power first made?
Is not His love at issue still with sin,
Visibly when a wrong is done on earth?
Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around?"[B]

[Footnote B: _A Death in the Desert